three months old

Merry Christmas!

We have had the most amazing Christmas with this sweet little boy, and we still have one more day of Christmas celebrations to go when my brother and sister-in-law come in to Houston tomorrow. Ethan has been so good through all the chaos of visiting family and being passed around!

Ethan is just an amazing little boy. We are in awe of every one of his little accomplishments, and we love seeing his personality come out. He's started giggling (not as much as I'd like - I can't get enough!) and he is such a little flirt with his sweet smile! He loves smiling at his mama for no reason, and he loves to sleep - almost as much as we do! If we wear him out really well, Ethan will sleep ten hours at night. On a normal day, he sleeps about eight hours. We're loving his long nights!

Ethan weighs 15 pounds and 10 ounces! Babies are supposed to double their birth weight at 6 months (which would be March) but he is already almost there - that would be 16 lbs and 6.8 oz for him (~13 ounces to go!). It's safe to say that breastfeeding is going well!

Our big man is wearing 6 month (and sometimes 6-9 month) clothes comfortably these days - I'd even say that some of the 6 month onesies are getting snug. This is the longest he has worn one clothing size, so I'd say he isn't growing quite as rapidly as he did the first two months, but that is kind of nice because we can't quite keep up with all the clothes he has already blown through.

Ethan can roll over from front to back, hold his head up when he is on his belly (with or without the help of his hands), follow your movements with his eyes, smile, laugh, and steal your heart (watch out ladies!). He's still trying to strengthen his neck, but he loves standing and sitting with our help. New environments and environments with lots of people both keep him entertained, quiet, and happy. He sleeps the best on the nights when he has had a lot of interaction!

We have loved (almost) every minute of the last three months with our sweet baby, and we are looking forward to many, many more!

Merry Christmas!

xo,

December Pictures

Groupon is a wonderful thing. Without it, we would have paid well over $100 for the photos we took at JCPenney's on Sunday. Instead, we paid $20 and we get prints, too! I can't wait to hang this one in the house:

There were a lot of photos, and we had to pick our favorites for the prints, so we picked one with just Ethan & I for Austin's desk at work (his idea - and a really sweet one!):

Here are the rest of the pictures we liked:

And here are the pictures we took with Santa (not nearly as cute, but we managed to get it done with a cranky baby and a hyper puppy):

In other news, we got the first quote on our Master Bath remodel. Apparently, the remodeling business is slow around the holidays so they said they would give us 10% off... just in case anyone else is getting bids at this time of year! We did pull the trigger on getting our 40-year-old windows replaced... it is just too drafty for us! We are hoping to save some money on heating & cooling if at all possible now that I am working from home and running heat or A/C all day. If it weren't for Ethan, I'd rough it!

We're getting ready to remember and celebrate the life of a sweet friend's father tonight and tomorrow, and ask for your prayers for the Moore family as they celebrate Rob's life.

love,

PS - we have a lot of bronze accents in our master bath right now and I'm having a hard time imagining that we should buy silver fixtures, but it may be cheaper than buying more bronze stuff. Has anyone else noticed that the prices of bronze fixtures are 2x what nickel fixtures are?! (I'm talking lights, faucets, toilet paper holders, you-name-it!) Sigh...

Master Bath Ideas

This project is daunting. We knew when we bought the house that it would have to be approached, but we didn't know how soon, how much it would cost, or what we would do with it.

The first option was to leave the layout as-is (the layout makes no sense, as you'll see below) and just do a facelift. We decided to be real with ourselves, though, and recognize that kitchens & baths sell houses, so we decided that doing it up big (a full remodel) was the only way to go.

If you come to our house, it's highly likely that I will avoid showing you the master bathroom. It is by all means, disgusting. It is old, and our house was a rent house, so it was not well-taken-care-of.

The shower is moldy (I'm sure we are killing ourselves a little each time we use it) and everything is covered in mauve terrazzo. I know every guy wakes up wanting to shower in a pink bathroom....

This is the tiny 24" doorway into our bathroom. It's like
that because the shower is immediately to the right of the
doorway.

It was also a DIY gone bad. There are gaps between the tile and the wall where they didn't cut the tile properly so they just filled it in with grout, and the tiles are uneven so you kick them just a little.

Gross, the drawer face fell off of the front of that cabinet.
Nevermind how messy we are.

It's hard to will yourself to take care of something that was so poorly taken care of before. Oh, and this sink is so low, Austin just about breaks his back every morning.

The stall looks somewhat updated but that's because we
spray-painted it. The glass is waterstained and that
seems irreversible.

That's right, just one sink in the master bath! Oh, and
trust me, that was not the best place to put a toilet....

Anyone want to take a jacuzzi bath with a giant mirror?
No? Okay, lets make this laundry storage.
(That is Austin's "don't dry" pile.)

Voila! This is where a toilet belongs...

The vanity and the tub were part of a remodel to the house in the 80's (it had to be the 80's, the choices were so bad). It used to be a dog run from the garage to the back yard right off the laundry room/kitchen. Because our house only has indirect back yard access (through our bedroom or the garage) we considered reinstating this, but we decided the bathroom really does need to meet today's standards, so we are keeping that square footage in the bathroom. Plus, we weren't sure it'd give us much of an advantage over the alternate routes to the back yard. That indirect access problem is probably the #1 reason we'd ever move out of this house. Most houses have access from the living room/kitchen... but not us!

So here's the current layout, and the proposed layout. Note that the triangle thing in the proposed layout was (what I imagined to be) built-in storage, but we decided we'd just put a dresser up against that wall for storage instead. We are ditching that shower space entirely to open up the bathroom. It's a pretty tight fit right now. I'm also hoping to put in a full-length mirror in there. We don't have one anywhere in the house, and Austin is always asking if he is too wrinkly. The man needs a mirror.

This is the fourth paint-drawing I made of this space before we decided we liked this option. And now we really, really like this option (as in, this is it!).

We'd take out the awkward linen closet (it's too deep and narrow to be beneficial), widen the doorway and either put in a pocket door or narrow double-doors, make the bathtub area into a walk-in shower (NO GLASS!) and move the toilet ($$$) so it's more like a water closet where the vanity is currently. That double-sink is going to be spectacular - I think that area is something like 80" wide! I'm hoping to not have to move the drain where the bath is so we can save some money, but we will see what the contractor says when they come for an estimate... hopefully this week.

We love this proposed layout right now, and we know it is going to cost a ton of money, but we also know it is the difference between selling this house in the future, and struggling to get it off the market.

With a new baby, this is not a project we are looking to do ourselves (though we will do some demo and install lights and bath fixtures ourselves to save a little bit of money). I'm excited for the possibilities, though - like soundproof green board (if they make that) that will let me sleep soundly when Austin goes to work before the sun rises.

These are the decorating ideas I have for this bathroom: {pinterest board}. I want it to feel like a spa, and I'm considering using the same tile from the kitchen in here to help tie the house together. Once we put in wood floors (down the line), I don't want to have a myriad of flooring types in the house, so I think this would make it cohesive and feel a little newer, since that's what most builders do now.

Any ideas or suggestions for our sufficiently awkward space, or for easy access to the back yard? Any remodeling on your horizon (with a new baby to boot)?

love,

UPDATE: This is as close to scale as I could get. This is a general idea of what we are planning to do.

9 & 10 weeks old

We went to the doctor last Tuesday (which is actually when Ethan turned 9 weeks old) and got Ethan's shots. I had no idea how many he was getting or how big the needles were, and I was a little nervous, but I knew he would be fine in the end.

They weighed our wiggle-worm in at 13 pounds 4 ounces, which brought him up to the 77th percentile (up from the 43rd percentile!). He is doing really well with gaining weight, but it's definitely been some work for me!

Ethan is 24.5" long, which still leaves him exactly where he was 7 weeks ago - the 98th percentile. His head growth is slowing a tiny bit (to me, he looks a little more proportional) and he is down from the 93rd percentile to the 91st with a 16" head circumference!

He took his shots like a ... baby. They reel you in by giving you the first one orally - he didn't know what he was up against after that. The nurse had them lined up and ready to go so she could pop them in him really quickly. She was done in less than 30 seconds but Ethan was bright red and crying. It is so hard to see a baby cry because of something you're objecting them to! I kind of froze and my mom jumped into action and held/soothed him while we packed up & made our next appointment.

I'll be honest - it's already a hassle to haul around a small baby, it's an even bigger hassle to haul one around in the cold. I'm a little burnt out from Christmas shopping/car shopping/grocery shopping with Ethan, especially right after a week when Austin was gone and I had to do all of that by myself. Adding cold to the mix just makes it a miserable process, as you beg your car to warm up for your baby's sake. (Update: we just emptied the garage, so for the next cold spell, we'll be parking in the garage, which will help A TON in getting Ethan to & from places.)

In other updates, we've decided to put the car search on hold for a while. We'll just opt to take care of the Jeep for now (and deal with the fact that Ethan's car seat protrudes into the front seat) and, wait until we are forced to look for another car (i.e. Jeep breaks down, new baby, whatever) in a few years. Not only is the car-buying process exhausting, but we also decided we'd rather get new windows - this cold air was enough to convince us of that - and/or remodel the master bathroom, which we finally have decided on plans for (I think... more on that in another post!).

We couldn't be happier with our little string bean! And he is cute to boot. :)

love,

two months

This has been the fastest two months of my life. (I think that will be the theme for these posts: "This has been the fastest ___ of my life".) I don't think any part of my pregnancy flew by this quickly, and I definitely wish things would slow down a bit. Working while taking care of a baby and a puppy might do that to you, though!

While I don't have Ethan's stats today, we are going to get his shots tomorrow, so they will likely measure him then. Undeniably, the two compliments (comments?) we get are: 1) He is so big! 2) He is so CUTE! - I can't agree more. Little man is squeezing into 3-6 month clothes... at all of two months old. It seems we will need to upgrade (yet again) quite soon. Aunt Kristin - we may be knocking down your door for more clothes soon! :)

We spent all day Saturday shopping for a car with a baby. If you think anything is more exhausting, I will challenge you on that. We got him in and out of the car repeatedly. We brought him because the car we pick (if we ever pick one) has to accommodate a car seat (roomy back seat) and be able to load and unload a stroller easily. Unfortunately, though we just bought the Jeep last year, it is a huge hassle. We'll bear with it until we find something that will work perfectly. It's hard having a modest budget and sticking to it when you're looking for a car that needs to meet many needs...

While we keep you waiting for Ethan's stats and an update on how he handles the doctor, here are some adorable pictures of our sweet little two-month-old!

Last night, before bedtime

This morning, as he was waking up

I'll share a stats photo tomorrow after we have some accurate stats from the doctor!

Love,

baby smiles & guest room re-do

Ethan's been smiling sporradically (not just gas smiles) for a couple of weeks now. It took a while but I found some things that make him smile consistently, and finally got a couple of pictures!

On Tuesday, our little man will be 8 weeks old. In the state of Texas, you don't get inoculated until after your two-month birthday, which means we have to wait until Monday the 25th to take him to the doctor... and the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we will finally be able to take Ethan to church! We have missed having Sundays at BCF, though I'll admit that a Sunday readily feels like a Saturday when you're not in the routine of going to church. Getting back in that routine may take some work with a new little guy!

Last week, Ethan weighed over 12 lbs. We're excited to get official weight & measurement from the doctor when we go. Aside from smiling, we've noticed that he holds his head up really well and can turn it side to side when he is on his tummy. He does like to lick whatever is under him sometimes (be it the Pack N Play, crib, our bed, whatever). The TV also catches his attention, so I guess we won't be watching The Walking Dead with him around!

__

I'm kicking myself because I'm always knee-deep in a project before I realize that I should've taken some "Before" pictures. I'm really terrible about that.

In the last couple of months, I've decided that I didn't like our guest room decor. I bought a bright yellow duvet for the teal & yellow motif we had in our guest room in our townhouse in Clarksville. I trashed or rearraged most of the decor in that room, so I was left with this duvet that was decidedly juvenile. I traded that for this bright white one - now every duvet in the house is white. It seems boring, but it makes it easy for me to redecorate!

(Yep, Ethan's demonstrating the comfort of the room.)

Those cables need taming! The lighting in this picture isn't the best..

This is a better picture of the colors in the room.
The baby is a great accent ;)

Here's the breakdown of the redo:
New duvet cover (IKEA): $25
New lamp (Ross): $13
New decorative pillow (Ross): $10
New wooden carving (Ross): $18
New print and frame (IKEA): $20
New mirrors (IKEA): $10 total
New headboard fabric (JoAnn's): $15
New curtains (Michael's): $20
= $111

The blanket, which we bought in Tennessee, was a $17 Walmart find. The wall shelves are from Hobby Lobby(maybe $15-20 each, one was a gift), as are the candle sticks ($30 or less total). The night stand, which I may also paint someday, is from TJ Maxx on clearance (I don't remember the price, but I know it was a steal because the hinges weren't attached).

The headboard is made of two oblong art canvases, wrapped in upholstery fabric, and glued around the edges (I used a glue gun). I reused the canvases and just bought new fabric at JoAnn's. The canvases were probably $30 or less at Michael's, purchased when we lived in Tennessee.

I'm thinking we'll paint it a really light/soft gray, but that's going to wait since I know that also brings along with it the daunting task of painting the trim white. We all know it took me several months to paint the doors in Ethan's room :)

That's all for now.. share your updates with me!

Also, if anyone sees a killer Black Friday deal on a camera, we're in the market!

love,

one month old!

I can't believe our sweet little boy is one month old already!

It's amazing the difference a month makes. At two weeks, I was seriously doubting whether we would ever have another kid. (That is still up to God, but if I had my say, the answer at that point may have been no!) Ethan is a pretty great baby, but newborns are exhausting in general, and I did not take advantage of caffeine like I should have (though I feel like I've slept through October). Two weeks later, and the little man has impressed us so much - he even slept through the night on Monday!! Our pediatrician said that some babies do that at 4 weeks, and I thought he was crazy (or that those were rare instances). He hasn't repeated it since, but getting up in the middle of the night to feed and change him is getting surprisingly quick and easy... especially since he figured out what nighttime and daytime are!

Ethan's stats at one month:

s

Ethan's been crying all day - either for food or to be held. He's also eating really frequently, so maybe he's hitting a growth spurt? Needless to say, he's commandeered my day... and I'm okay with that :)

love,